I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.
BLACK ELKAs you walk upon the sacred earth, treat each step as a prayer.
More Black Elk Quotes
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The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
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But if the Vision was true and mighty, as I know, it is true and mighty yet;for such things are of Spirit, and it is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost.
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We should understand well that all things are the work of the Great Spirit. We should know the Great Spirit is within all things: the trees, the grasses, the rivers, the mountains, and the four-legged and winged peoples; and even more important.
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A good nation I will make live.This the nation above has said.They have given me the power to make over.
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He who is well prepared is he who knows that he is nothing compared with Wakan-Tanka, who is everything; then he knows that world which is real.
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If I thought that I was doing it myself, the hole would close up and no power could come through. Then everything I could do would be foolish.
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The center of the universe is everywhere.
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The visions and ceremonies only made me like a whole through which the power could come to the two-leggeds.
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Out of the Indian approach to life there came a great freedom, an intense and absorbing respect for life, enriching faith in a Supreme Power, and principles of truth, honesty, generosity, equity, and brotherhood as a guide to mundane relations.
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When I got back to my father and mother and was sitting up there in our tepee, my face was still all puffed and my legs and arms were badly swollen; but I felt good all over and wanted to get right up and run around.
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Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.
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The life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
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Any man who is attached to things of this world is one who lives in ignorance and is being consumed by the snakes of his own passions
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Once we were happy in our own country and we were seldom hungry, for then the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds lived together like relatives, and there was plenty for them and for us.
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Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.
BLACK ELK